


After the Battle

by Happenstance_and_Balderdash



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8154811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happenstance_and_Balderdash/pseuds/Happenstance_and_Balderdash
Summary: The Doctor has been stranded across the sea while Rose was left alone with an impending battle looming.  He returns to find the unexpected.





	

They tell him she’s alive.  They tell him she’s safe and in a chamber in the canopy.  They tell him it’s because of her that the young weren’t taken this cycle.  There will be a celebration in her honor.  They will erect a likeness of her somewhere he doesn’t catch the name of.  His brain stopped at “she’s safe.”

It had seemed the longest 76 hours of his considerable lifetime trying to get back to her.  Knowing she was in danger and being absolutely powerless to do anything but fiddle with gears and plugs had been nothing short of torture.  There was something about this planet which the TARDIS didn’t like, and when he had flown to the main continent for aid, one of the panels had simply exploded, stranding him across the sea. It had been either fix the TARDIS or sail for the better part of a month to get back.

By the time he’d made it back to the colony, sprinting over the sage-green grass toward the thick treeline, he was beside himself.  It was only small comfort that the pods he’d expected to see weren’t present.  Splintered wood, charred trunks and the smell of smoke told their own story.

“Where is she?” he demanded of the first guard he could reach, his head swimming, looking up into the branches as if he’d be able to pick her out amongst them.

After a moment of confusion, the tall guard recovered and waved a child over to them. “This one will lead you,” he replied calmly, giving the boy a nod and telling him to lead the way.

The boy smiled up at him and bounced once on his toes, sending the string of green feathers he wore across his sunken chest fluttering before turning quickly and pointing upward.  “Follow me!”

Nobody they passed asked questions or tried to stop them. The Doctor guessed he must look fairly alarming, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.  They climbed higher and higher, round after round about the absurdly tall tree.  They walked over archways and slipped through tunnels of vines connecting other trees on their way up, the ascent seemingly endless.  The Doctor felt his patience slipping when finally, with a toe-bounce, the boy turned and announced “She’s in there!” with a beaming, toothless grin before bounding off again.

He could only give the slightest of nods to the boy’s retreating back as he reached out to touch the sleek handle of the door.  Large yellow flowers hung over the entrance and others of varying hue laid piled to the sides.  It came as a surprise when he noticed his fingers trembling as he gently pushed open the door.

He could hear soft voices talking and one that giggled as the room was slowly revealed to him.  And then all at once, she was there.

“Doctor!” she exclaimed, nothing but relief and joy in her voice at the sight of him, but he stood frozen, taking in the scene, hand still gripping the handle of the door.

Four adolescent girls wearing strings of multicolored feathers across their thin chests busied themselves attending to Rose, the tallest of them standing on a low box to weave a large pink flower into her hair.  The others fussed with strings of iridescent feathers which hung across Rose’s shoulders and about her waist over her own worn jeans and blue camisole.  Rose watched him for a moment, and then crouched slightly to whisper something to the girls who nodded, toe-bounced and left, smiling up at the Doctor as they passed him.

It was a small room, but bright with the sun and heavily scented with flowers.  Only one thick rug interrupted the smooth wood beneath their feet.  With no others there to distract him, he took in everything, and his hearts dropped into his stomach.  Although feathers fluttered prettily about her in the light breeze, his eyes were drawn to her exposed skin.  Large bruises left a trail down her left arm all the way from shoulder to elbow as if from the grip of an extremely large hand.  Through her thin camisole, he noticed the outline of a long bandage which wound from her right hip up around to her back.  A smattering of smaller scratches and bruises littered the rest of what he could see.

He knew that the silence between his entrance and this moment had stretched too long, and Rose was beginning to look uncomfortable.  Self-conscious. “It’s a bit bright, innit?” she offered, indicating the feathers and flower.  “Didn’t see any harm letting them do it.  Made them happy…” her voice trailed off as she watched him.  He let go of the handle at last, moving toward her with one hand raised slightly, his movement almost unconscious.  She was alive.  She was safe.  But she was hurt.  She had saved the children from a terrible fate, but she had come to harm, and it burned him.  “Doctor?”  Her own eyes searched his, looking for something and not finding it.  “Are you…”

She stopped again as his hand, seemingly of its own volition, reached up to touch the flower in her hair.  It was five-petaled and scentless.  But as he touched it, it shifted, revealing a deep gash at her hair line extending back a finger’s length.  The sight made his stomach churn and he snatched his hand back as if he’d been scalded, falling to his knees in front of her, his hands gripping tightly to her hips to steady himself.

“Doctor!?” she exclaimed, her own hands flying up in surprise, “What…”

“Rose…oh, Rose” he said heavily, looking up at her with guilt etched into every feature, awe and sadness in his eyes, fingers sliding a little until they caught at the waist of her jeans, just hanging on.  “How did I let…you could have died.”

She still held her hands up, hovering above him, not sure what to do with them as he clung to her like a drowning man.  It was all a bit disconcerting.  Not to mention, he was pulling on her bandages.  “Well, I’m not dead, the children haven’t been taken, and there’s a party tonight,” she listed off, trying to sound upbeat.

“There was nothing I could do.” 

As he exhaled heavily and rested his head against her abdomen, she understood.  She couldn’t fathom were this had come from after all his talk of ‘stupid apes’ and the like, but she wouldn’t pretend she was anything but pleased.  She lowered her hands to pull up gently at his arms. “Come up here, Doctor.”  He stood slowly, eyes a little bloodshot but not wet as he looked into hers.  He looked exhausted, his hands falling to rest limply at his sides.  Rose closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms gently around him and resting her head against his chest, careful not to disturb the flower in her hair.  She could hear his hearts beating steadily and, after a moment’s hesitation, he returned the gesture, arms wrapping gingerly around her and head falling forward closer to her own.  “I’m fine, Doctor.  Really.” She said quietly into his coat, giving him a gentle squeeze. 

“Of course you are.”

It had been a stressful and, at times, terrifying few days, but once the threat was gone, Rose thought the place fairly nice.  While there had been some serious fighting, and she had at one point been dragged away like the children, it had only really taken some posturing and name-dropping to get the offenders to turn tail once she had gotten to someone of high enough rank.  There was no way she’d tell that detail to the Doctor, though.  He thought her weak and fragile enough already, she was sure.  As she relaxed into him, she could smell the leather of his coat and the odd sweet scent that the grass here left on everything it touched.  Smiling, she said “Y’know, I wasn’t half bad.  One little human saving the day.  I was pretty good, actually.”

She could hear the smile in his voice as he replied, “I just bet you were!” And he moved his hands up to her shoulders, separating them again.  She missed the embrace, but the look of happy pride he was giving her made up for it entirely.  “Rose Tyler, savior of an entire generation.”  He flashed his eyebrows at her and grinned broadly.  Clearly, his moment of melancholy had passed.

Rose rolled her eyes and gave him a look.  “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“I’m not!” he protested with a laugh.  “That’s literally what you are to these people!” 

Rose shook her head slightly.  It was true, she supposed.  It’d be another ten years before they’d have to worry about a return visit.  It was very strange to hear, though. 

A high-pitched bell rang from some distance away, perhaps from the ground, signaling the start of celebrations.  “So,” she said lightly and tilted her head, pretending to evaluate the Doctor.  “Be my plus one?”

She hoped his buoyant mood would stay for a while.  It suited him.  “Thought you’d never ask” he grinned as he offered her an arm.

As they made their way slowly down the endless stairway, the first notes of music drifted up to them and there were already a few small fires dotted across the ground visible through the branches.  It was bound to be a memorable evening.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of random fluff I suppose.
> 
> ~happendash on tumblr~


End file.
